point taken, dgi, and it generally holds in party games (like the amazing foxwoods game I used to play in)
This isn't a drunks game I'm playing in, although there is some looseness obv and I will try a slightly larger raise next time. The question is though, would I rather have 6 people calling with garbage for $12 or 3 people calling with decent hands for $16?

I'm not sure how you can say that whatever raise size gets 1-2 callers is *the* right size. When drunks are in the game, they are my best friends and they can be mercilessly isolated. But usually big multiway pots are my bread and butter.

The disparity between my hand and the others is that either a drunk/straddle was in the lineup or someone else raised and hero got to 3-bet. Obviously then, you can bring the hammer down but opening utg to $20 in my 1/2 game is ridiculous

Just try it. You will be surprised by the outcome, I guarantee it. Have one game where 100% of all your preflop raises are $20 for the entire game. I guarantee you will be surprised by the outcome.

Interesting analysis digi, manipulating the raise size is something I dont do since I'm not always raising for value.

The problem with this logic is that I DON'T want a game where 8 BB raises are typical for the table.

When most players I play with only have 100 BB or less, I don't want to turn the game into a pre-flop game. That goes against where my edge is.

Again, if your game is full of players like this, then sure, nit it up and overbet your monsters. When most of the player pool does not play like this, your simple strategy of "wait for KK and then raise 10BB" doesn't work so well...

Again, I don't WANT to play at a table where a 7-8BB raise is standard, because it would force me to play like a nit and kill my ability to play marginal hands that have implied odds, and get into more pots with players who are terrible post-flop.

My pre-flop raises are intended to strike a balance between gaining initiative, getting value, creating post-flop FE, and disguising my relatively wide range.

Of course, but most players tend to suck worse post-flop even more than pre-flop. They call when they should fold, call when they should raise, raise when they should call, etc... By making large raises pre-flop you kill your own ability to make plays post-flop and turn the game into waiting for big pairs and then shoving the flop. If you play in soft enough games this may work, but it's still not optimal.

Post this in any of the online forums and you'd get laughed out of there.

Agree 100% with sabr.

I'm a fan of increasing raises till you hit the sweet spot.

This morning at $1/$2 when the table opened I started off at $12 and worked up to $18 6 hours later. Meanwhile the $7 raisers stayed at $7 the whole time. IME over time your raise size becomes "your raise size" so by the end of my session even my $18 UTG opens would sometimes get called by 4 players. A few months ago I got up to $24 - I make it $24 from SB after 4 limpers and meet up with CO's J9o at showdown. Limp call $24 with J9o at $200 effective stacks - donkalicious.

Its a Shame, you are missing tons of value.

We should be happy to play ANY SPOT where we have an edge and one of the absolute BIGGEST leaks LLSNL rec fish have is in their preflop game. So your discomfort with pushing your preflop edge is costing you incredible value post flop. Because when our villains make a preflop mistake (i.e. calling a raise with an RIO hand) the magnitude of their mistakes are GEOMETRIC!!!

Talk about missing out on opportunity and value. You don't have to "nit it up" and wait for KK, all you have to do is ensure your range is ahead of your villains. If my villain's calling range is SCs, suited gapers, Axs, Kxs, 22+, then I can profitably raise 10bb pre with JT+, 88+. This isn't opinion, this is mathematical fact.

You have the wrong mindset about all this. Being able to raise 8bb gives you enormous power and flexibility in manipulating your opponents. You can adjust your raise sizing vs position from 2bb - 8bb giving you a more dynamic range and ability to manipulate situations based on image, position, villain tendencies, etc. You can still play SCs, Suited gapers, Axs and use implied odds, position, etc. Its just that being "able" to raise up to 8bb (or more) allows you to BETTER exploit your villains.

Have no idea why you can't see this. You seem to be so rigid and inflexible in your thinking on how poker should be played.

You can do the same by having a more dynamic raising range from 3bb - 8bb. Again, its not like an 8bb raise is compulsory, but having the ability to raise 8bb vs villains that will call your 8bb raise just as soon as they'd call a 3bb raise is an enormous point of value you are missing out on.

This is not always true. There are some players who suck worse post flop than preflop. But there are some players who suck preflop more than post. And again, mistakes in poker are geometric so by pushing your preflop edge you end up with more value post flop and that increased value is geometric. A 4bb increase in the preflop raise can result in a 20bb+ increase in the value you extract from villain by the river. And i'm not talking about stack offs, simply betting each street.


This is straight from the 1980s school of poker and is just wrong. 100bb is plenty enough for us to maneuver post flop. If our raising range is greater than V's calling range and we have position on V then we can raise ANY amount preflop and it will be profitable. And this goes DOUBLE for if we have a post-flop edge vs our villains.

I mean, I just don't get how you don't see how flawed your argument is? How in the world is it not profitable to get our villains to call for more than their hand is worth preflop when our range crushes theirs and when our postflop edge is greater than theirs?

Its not about whether the game is soft or not. Its whether you are the better player or not and better able to exploit and adjust to the table dynamics.

ANd this is why many online players don't do as well in the live game because they are too rigid in their thinking about how poker should be played and they don't properly adjust to live villains. They lose value because they cannot properly comprehend just how terribad some of our live villains are.

All i'm advocating is exploiting our villains leaks. And one of our villains' biggest leaks is preflop. But you don't want to exploit that leak, you just want to focus on the post flop leaks??? And this is a leak on your part because preflop mistakes will result in a geometric increase in value post flop. And if we have the postflop edge (as you claim) then that is even better news for us.

ya, lol at 'i wish they would play more optimally so i could play 'real poker', instead of just sitting here and collecting money'.
or ;'I wish they would play more optimally so i could play less optimally? (PF)'<<< that one just hurts my brain.
I guess it comes down to what you feel the object of the game is?
If it's to get your opponents chips, then obv you want them to call as much as possible when they are a dog, and the stacks sizes can never justify it.
if it's something else, then 'move up to where they...'

I'm with dgi on the PF raise sizing. Bigger raises = bigger profits when you're ahead of their range.

Today 3/5, I have V covered:

One limper, I make it $45 w/QQ. BB (stack $300) calls, limper folds. Flop is JT9 rainbow. BB checks, I bet $75, BB shoves, I call. Board runs out K8, no flush. BB turns over Q8s for flopped straight. We chop.

I see this type call all day, everyday for 6x - 10x PF raise. They refuse to let go of the trashy hands they love to play. Just keep increasing the size until you can isolate one or two players.

Sigh, you just don't get it.

I wasn't only talking about Hero raising. You were arguing that you try to make 8BB opens feel standard for the entire table. I disagree, because you have to play nitter when it costs a lot more to see a flop. When the entire table is opening to 8BB, you can no longer play hands like 55 or 87s because it gets too expensive to see a flop. Hands like these are very profitable vs weak players because they typically play their hands face-up so you have good implied odds. But not when it costs 8-10% of your stack just to see a flop.

Again, I play in way nitter games than you. A big portion of my player pool consists of nitfish whose biggest leaks are being passive with medium hands, bet-sizing, and playing their hands face-up. You don't crush my game by playing like a nit and overbetting. You have to beat them slowly by being more aggressive than they are, and occasionally hitting weird hands that they can't put you on.

You're trying to exploit HUGE edges preflop, and that's fine, but when these edges simply don't exist ($40 opens in my game simply don't get called often), you have to try to exploit smaller edges, but do it more often.

Anytime I see someone raise 8BB with KK and 3BB with 55 I immediately start 3-betting them light when they raise 3 BB. If I can exploit something this easily, then in theory everyone can. Of course most players suck at poker and won't exploit you this way, but when you play in a nitty game with the same players all the time, and don't have the option of switching tables, balance is important.

There are some nits in my game who play in the way you advocate, at least pre-flop. None of them is a winner (or at best is a very small winner). I've had one guy tell me "man I don't know how you do it, these games are terrible because there aren't enough fish." But I've found a way to beat this game, because all the regfish are fish to me.

I don't need to to say any more because it would be redundant. You're trying to say that I'm incapable of adjusting, when you couldn't be further from the truth and a lot of your post is a giant strawman. I've recognized that the proper adjustment in my game is to play my style, which includes a lot of game theory and "balance." When ABC poker doesn't work you have to get more creative.

Not all games are like Vegas. I think I play in a very similar game to SABR and play a close style to him. There is a difference between seeing different people everytime you sit down who are willing to gamble and regulars who you play with often. They all have leaks, though. You just have to exploit them differently.

Seems pretty clear that their regular games are so different from each other that they are both correct.

No they're not, the difference is sabr strategy exploits the regs as well as the fish

lol come on

The worst you can say about an online winner is that he tries to "balance too much" and maybe doesn't exploit some edges hard enough.

Meanwhile, most live $2/5 and $5/10 players can't beat $1/2 online because they have too many fundamental leaks that are disguised by playing against huge numbers of live fish that don't exist online.

So yeah, maybe live players exploit huge fish a bit more in certain specific spots (like, making a massive squeeze with AA that the fish will call anyway). Put them in a tougher game and who wins?

Every casino has regs and if you play long hours which you guys should, at the end of the night you should at least have 3 regs at your table.

Yeah, I can buy that conclusion.

If SABR's games are as nitty as he claims, then I can agree with most of what he says.

Perhaps the source of our disagreement is the disparity between the type of games we play in? Apparently SABRs games are made up of primarily nitty thinking players. Whereas my games are primarily comprised of aggro donks and clueless players playing for fun...

SABRs strategy may be +EV vs the fish, but it loses "some" value against the fish. SABRs strategy seems more specialized against competent players.

The fundamental difference between our approaches in my opinion is the root base assumption. To me, SABR's strategy is based on exploiting competent players and giving himself the most room to maneuver post flop. My strategy is based on exploiting rec fish and aggro spew monkeys and aggressively pushing all edges (preflop and post flop).

In any event, we've both outlined enough of our philosophies that you can make up your own mind. ILCD believes SABR is right, fair enough.

Surely both kinds of games are fairly common and you have to adjust to each. I've played in games where I minraise the button (and obv get folds), and spots where I 5x or 6x, even 10x open... and I've done both in 5/10 games.

I don't understand the argument. I respect sabr a lot but I have to say that if there's a game where I can 8x or 10x KK and still get lots of action, that's probably one of the softest games ever and I'd be dying to get into it, and nit up get paid. I think having a very strong game in games where standard opens are 3-4x bbs is VERY important to have a sustained performance (not be forced to bumhunt), but I've got to think it's wrong to say you DON'T WANT to be in one of these rarer hugely stationy games.

I definitely agree it takes away a lot of the skill element in the game, it's less fun, and how well you do is far more dependent on showdowns (having hands and not being sucked out on) but on a purely EV standpoint we DO want to be in those games, right?

Obviously using that strategy (nitting up and raising huge) in a lot of games is f cking terrible, and I think it's key to make it clear that dgi probably doesn't mean using this strategy on tables where you'd get exploited if you make huge raises with strong hands, but we in terms of only using it in spots where it's max value (since we'll get action with it ANYWAY), I don't exactly see why sabr's arguing against dgi's point. There's no need to get tense here, because I think both are good players/posters, I'm frankly confused why there's a disagreement at all. The only thing I can think of is that sabr plays at a locale that doesn't have these juicy games we're talking about, and think we're exaggerating when we say, yeah 10x it pre and get max action regardless of how strong you look.

If your 55$ raises are getting called in a 2/5 game by <200$ stacks I really, really, want to move to where those games are.

This is an absolute fantasy to me. I assume it's a gross exaggeration.

If this is actually the case, raise a super wide value range to that size and enjoy your bentley you can buy in a few months. Sick.

My money comes from playing LAG in LLSNL and value betting like a maniac and doubling regs off their weak pairs they l/c pre and call flops with.

Obv this.

It's not. I think part of my success playing live has been identifying/adapting to the wide range of games because it varies so much. Even on the same table, who has folded and who's to act changes both my range and my raise sizing a lot.

Let's assume two huge fish is UTG and UTG+1. If they limp, I will make it pretty huge if I raise. If they fold, I make it 3x (or 2x even OTB at times).

Let's say 2 hands later UTG and UTG+1 are now sb and bb. I'm back to making it 5x pre. npnpnp. What's the chance of them actually noticing. If anything, they will think you're "attacking my blinds more aggressively" and feel even more inclined to defend it. It makes no sense, but that's actually what they would do.

I do think these are extreme cases and most games fall somewhere in between, but I think being comfortable at playing all the games over this spectrum, as well as being able to identify them, is pretty important.

fwiw in my lifetime I've played in 20-25 venues, over 10 of those I've played 50+ hours in, and I've played like both 1/2 and 5/10 (and obv shots higher as well), actually I've played some 1/1 recently "for fun" with some friends too, so if there's one thing I can claim to be expert about is how wide a range of game dynamics/players there can be. Moreover, these dynamics are NOT limited to a certain stake. I've played LOTS of 1/2 games that are tougher than some 5/10 games I played, or situations where the 5/10 game has simultaneously one of the top 5 best/toughest players I've ever played with, and also one of the top 10~ most profitable (depends on how you mean profitable, someone can be a HUGE -bb/100 player at 1/2 but in terms of actual money you can take from him is much less than a slightly worse fish at higher stakes).

The MAJORITY of 2/5 games I've played with I open to 3x though, so in that sense I'm with sabr and find it surprising that you think 5-8xing in 2/5 is your common and most frequent open sizing.

Yes and no. If I may clarify, making an 8bb feel standard for the entire table doesn't eliminate the typical 3bb-4bb raises that many players are hardwired to raise. However, once an 8bb raise feels standard for the entire table, they will now call up to 8bb without thinking about it since that has now become the standard raise. Thus, we can exploit that. Basically, we have widen the calling range of our villains up to that standard amount that I like to achieve.

Yes and no. Yes we have to play a nittier range but that doesn't mean we have to wait for QQ+. All we have to do is play a range that is AHEAD of the preflop raiser.

Yeah, I can agree with that. But again, despite 8bb feeling standard, throughout the game we will still have plenty of opportunity to limp in or call 3bb raises to play our SCs and set mine...

I can buy this.

Fair enough. If conditions in your game are as you say, I can agree with this.

Btw what I said about wide range of game conditions is actually a pretty big deal to me on this forum as I feel like lots of otherwise good players are making fairly sweeping statements about what a villain can or cannot, will or will not do in a certain spot, when it can vary so much, and it's possible (imo) that a lot of, again, otherwise good players) have mainly played in a handful of venues in their grind routine.

This is just speculation and I could be wrong, and I don't want to show off how aggressively I game select (read: bumhunt), but it's worth thinking about it.

This is an important point, but anyone who frequently plays deep games with passive stations will know what I mean when you'll be isolating or raising huge with hands like 98s and JTs FOR VALUE. You WANT to get called because you know you can outplay them so well, not by bluffing merely (though you will sometimes) but by having a hand that make excellent hands to bomb for value, and generally have lots of equity, and when you DO make marginal showdown hands, be super happy about bet/folding. Obv when 80bbs 100bbs you'll have to be more selective about this.

I think we just think we are both right. And perhaps we both are.

I play in CA and Vegas with incredible game selection opportunities. Every day I watch as rec fish and aggro donks make the most ******ed plays known to poker kind. These players change the table dynamics so that even if there are a few competent players the bad players still determine the table dynamics and i've learned how to just adjust and exploit.

However, it seems SABR plays in a poker locale with players that aren't as fishy and aggro and he doesn't have the table selection opportunities that i have.

I will be honest, on rare occasion, I encounter a game like SABR is talking about. But in my areas, that game doesn't last long because all it takes is one or two droolers or aggros to come to the table and boom, back to our regularly scheduled donkfest. Or, if worse comes to worse I just table change.

There are tight-passives (who limp-fold a lot) and loose-passives (who call wide pre and then c/f when they whiff).

Yeah, there are very few players like this in my $2/5 game. Most of them play $1/2 instead. The $1/2 at my casino is way softer than $2/5, but I don't think the higher rake and 2.5x lower stake make it worth playing (for someone good).

Yes. I start with this strategy and I obv can adjust if the table has 6 crazy aggro fish, it's just that this scenario almost never occurs in my game.

Umm yeah I agree 100%.

This exactly. Having a stronger fundamental game means you can adjust more easily to tougher games. Doing it the other way around isn't as easy (starting from playing an exploitable game that is really good against fish and going into a tough game).

A misunderstanding perhaps.

My point was that all else being equal, I'd rather have bad players open to 3-4BB than 8-10BB, because I can call the 3-4BB raise more often with hands that have implied odds. The 8-10BB raise means I can't call, and won't.

Obv if a game is so soft that a 10BB open frequently gets called by weak hands, then I'd love to get into that game and be able to play nitty and print money. I didn't mean that I didn't want to play in an overall environment like that.
Yes.

Well I agree with you on most things, but see here's an interesting thought: would what you said still be true if you are 200.. 300... 500bbs deep?

I recall you saying that the games you played with have 100bb cap, but in a few places there are no caps. The 2/5 at the vic for instance has 2.5k cap, and 5/10+ is uncapped.

Also re dgiharris's games being filled with droolers.

MUST BE NICE.

I just posted the other day about how the Omaha game I have to play in while in HK is filled with nitfishes, hollyyy ****. Do you know what I had to do to win money? I have to bet bet raise (vs a donk) with flopped nut straight when the river flush came and he led half pot on river (put him on weak flush/combo redraw) and he snap folded his straight (would've chopped; he was block betting lol). This must be one of those examples because I bet 3 years ago when you played omaha you could literally nut peddle, like they do, and rake in the money, but nowadays people know not to get lots of money in without the nuts. It'd be actually fun to play if not of the fact that they limp so much all the time and I never get to play 3bet pots.

Well you can ignore specific numbers like 4 or 10 BB but the concept doesn't change. I made up those numbers because I play in 100 BB games, but in any game there's always a point where you can't profitably call. And of course you want to get into more pots vs bad players, so if they raise so much that you can't call, then they can't be outplayed post-flop which is worse for you.